I would like to run with an editable version of ARTIQ on W10, however, installing a clone of the ARTIQ repository with pip install -e . leads to the GUI scripts being no-ops: artiq_dashboard --help produces no output to the terminal. Console scripts work normally. Has anyone else experienced this?

I suspect it is down to the interplay between pip and conda somehow, but couldn't find anyone with similar problems, let alone solutions. Installing with conda develop . is even worse, as the scripts don't get registered as entry points at all.

Welcome to conda and conda on windows. Hopefully this will let you appreciate the fact that things are mostly working when installing according to the instructions in the manual, which is no coincidence - it took us an inordinate and frustrating amount of effort to get there.

MSYS2 is fundamentally saner than conda (https://github.com/m-labs/artiq/issues/1471), and most of ARTIQ runs on it with a few hacks and without too much drama (especially compared with the constant stream of BS coming from conda and its ecosystem), though there are a few practical issues with scientific packages that will need resolving e.g. https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues/6612

With conda, I would suggest:

  1. Clean up the ARTIQ installation. Wipe conda entirely and reinstall it if needed.
  2. Clone the repository and do not try to install anything - just set PYTHONPATH so that the Python interpreter substitutes artiq with the contents of the repository.
  3. If there are issues with the scripts (e.g. picking up the wrong version) you can run the dashboard as python -m artiq.frontend.artiq_dashboard

Ah solved - running with python -m artiq.frontend.artiq_dashboard raised an error that PyQt5 wasn't installed, where running with the entry point must redirect stderr. Installing PyQt5 fixed it.